Selling Spirituality

Where does the idea of ‘spirituality’ come from, and is it bad for us?

TBP blog will begin this weekend, with a review of Selling Spirituality,a book that asks where we got this easy-going, usefully vague notion in the first place.

Is it a freer, less doctrinaire alternative to religion – less patriarchal and guilt- inducing? Or is it the take-over of the religious impulse by psychology and by me- centred consumerism? If so, is ‘spirituality’ just another means for us to indulge ourselves? Might it actually be bad for community and for social justice?